Callander Meadows

The Parkes' appealing restaurant with rooms is a light-filled, unpretentious place, with bare-wood floors and undressed tables, crimson walls and fresh flowers. Both proprietors are chefs, and have cooked at the Gleneagles Hotel (see entry, Auchterarder), but the cooking here tacks to a more straightforward course than grand-hotel dining. Start with a salad of smoked duck, peppers and noodles dressed in soy, and go on to roast loin of Trossach venison with a potato cake, roasted roots and redcurrant jus. Fish could well be fried Trossach trout, served with creamed leeks and saffron butter. Desserts do everything that is expected of them in the indulgence department, with the likes of white chocolate and Baileys cheesecake.